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Corbyn suggests earnings limit

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I'm going to focus on the last bit of your post:

 

You're pulling my leg right? By that argument you'd be happy to have the poor starving as long as everybody else is starving too. Tell me that's not what you actually think.

 

In terms of happiness it's income equality which increases it. Not overall level of wealth.

 

---------- Post added 12-01-2017 at 15:07 ----------

 

Yes but to have somebody who's clearly not a moron come right out and say that basically it's okay for the poor to be poor as long as nobody is rich is still rather shocking.

I expect people like Corbyn to say such things, but he's a complete muppet.

 

I'm not sure I actually said that. Just that the goal (if it's to do with increasing the happiness of the electorate) is to decrease income inequality, NOT to increase the pay of the lowest paid. If you could magically overnight double the pay of all the poor (however you define it), but triple the pay of the rich, the result (after the honeymoon period ended, and ignoring the hyper inflation that would be triggered) would be decreased happiness.

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A brain drain can occur for many reasons. Some cite Brexit as reason why scientists may desert UK academia in favour of universities abroad. Others cite the high living costs living in London as compared to some other European cities.

It was similarly argued here, and abroad, for many years, that financial experts needed to be paid a lot of money to keep the 'best and the brightest'. If the recent financial crisis, and the many associated banking crises are anything to go by, their over inflated salaries are unwarranted.

Unfortunately, IMO, politics and finance are entwined, and politicians are in awe of a system where to make the rich work hard you need to pay more, but to make the poor work hard you've got to threaten them with redundancy or pay cuts.

 

As a matter of interest how would you get an international footballer to play for Chelsea for £300K when he was being offered £30 million by Real Madrid?

Edited by 3 Tuns

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JC never actually stated the reason he thought wage caps were a good idea.

 

But the only plausible reason I can think of (and thus the aim) is that high income inequality begets high levels of unhappiness.

So HIS aim is to decrease unhappiness amongst the population (this seems like a reasonable aim to be fair).

The solution to that is not to increase the pay of the poor IF the pay of the rich increases more. The aim to increase happiness HAS to be to decrease income inequality.

And since I agree that the happiness of the electorate is important, I have to agree that decreasing income inequality is good.

It can be done in at least 2 ways though, increase the pay of ONLY the poorer, or decrease the pay of ONLY the richer. (Poor/Rich based on income, not wealth).

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In terms of happiness it's income equality which increases it. Not overall level of wealth.

 

---------- Post added 12-01-2017 at 15:07 ----------

 

 

I'm not sure I actually said that. Just that the goal (if it's to do with increasing the happiness of the electorate) is to decrease income inequality, NOT to increase the pay of the lowest paid. If you could magically overnight double the pay of all the poor (however you define it), but triple the pay of the rich, the result (after the honeymoon period ended, and ignoring the hyper inflation that would be triggered) would be decreased happiness.

 

Going by the Gini coefficients for the countries with the most equal income distribution they are (top 10)

 

1) Ukraine

2) Slovenia

3) Norway

4) Belarus

5) Czech Republic

6) Slovakia

7) Kazakhstan

8 ) Iceland

9) Finland

10) Romania

 

The happiest countries in the world (according to the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network) are (top 10)

 

1) Denmark

2) Switzerland

3) Iceland

4) Norway

5) Finland

6) Canada

7) The Netherlands

8 ) New Zealand

9) Australia

10) Sweden

 

There is some overlap (Norway, Iceland and Finland) but it suggests there is more than just equality of income that makes a country happy or not.

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Going by the Gini coefficients for the countries with the most equal income distribution they are (top 10)

 

1) Ukraine

2) Slovenia

3) Norway

4) Belarus

5) Czech Republic

6) Slovakia

7) Kazakhstan

8 ) Iceland

9) Finland

10) Romania

 

The happiest countries in the world (according to the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network) are (top 10)

 

1) Denmark

2) Switzerland

3) Iceland

4) Norway

5) Finland

6) Canada

7) The Netherlands

8 ) New Zealand

9) Australia

10) Sweden

 

There is some overlap (Norway, Iceland and Finland) but it suggests there is more than just equality of income that makes a country happy or not.

 

Are the happiest countries not (by and large) strongly socialist with high tax and very good welfare systems? Quite the opposite of the conservative ideal.

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As a matter of interest how would you get an international footballer to play for Chelsea for £300K when he was being offered £0 million by Real Madrid?

 

I don't know how I would get an international footballer to play for Chelsea for £300K when he was being offered £0 million by Real Madrid, because I've no interest in football whatsoever.

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Are the happiest countries not (by and large) strongly socialist with high tax and very good welfare systems? Quite the opposite of the conservative ideal.

 

That's a different argument. We can discuss that if you want.

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Are the happiest countries not (by and large) strongly socialist with high tax and very good welfare systems? Quite the opposite of the conservative ideal.

 

That's a different question to the one we've been discussing.

The wealthier countries are the happier ones, not the most equal but the wealthiest. Now that we've got that settled...

 

 

There's some data on government revenue and government spending as a percentage of GDP here:

https://data.oecd.org/gga/general-government-spending.htm#indicator-chart

I guess the percentage of GDP controlled by the government is a decent indication of how socialist a country is. Not sure how else you'd measure it.

 

Denmark is high, but not as high as France (57%) which doesn't appear in the happiness top 10.

Switzerland is very low (~33%).

 

So I'd say that on the face of it there is no correlation between socialism and happiness.

 

 

Are you not rather starting from the conclusion and then hunting around for anything resembling confirmation. You may happen across something to validate your position eventually that way but you've tripped over a few things which dispute it already and then moved on.

Edited by unbeliever

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That's a different argument. We can discuss that if you want.

 

Not an argument so much as an observation.

 

But don't they have high tax rates to support their strong welfare state? And wasn't a higher rate of tax part of the discussion regarding controlling high paid salaries?

 

---------- Post added 12-01-2017 at 15:34 ----------

 

The wealthier countries are the happier ones, not the most equal but the wealthiest. Now that we've got that settled...

 

I certainly wasn't conceding that. Don't get ahead of yourself.

 

http://www.citylab.com/politics/2015/12/income-inequality-makes-people-unhappy/416268/

 

While happiness did track the level of economic development across these 16 advanced nations, the results changed when inequality was added to the equation. Higher levels of inequality led to lower levels of happiness, even in the most economically advanced nations. In fact, the researchers found that the percentage of respondents who said they were very happy was inversely cor*related with income inequality (with a negative correlation of −.618).

 

Every single time income inequality decreased between two time points, the percentage of ‘very happy’ responses went up," the researchers write. “And every time income inequality increased, the percentage of ‘very happy’ responses went down. In other words, although economic growth was steady and strong during this period, the evenness of the income distribution was fluctuating, and happiness was inversely related to income inequality.”

 

So people are happy with economic improvements, but they are happier if income equality comes down, and less happy if it increases.

 

Indeed, the study found that it is the even distribution of economic growth across a population that accounts for greater happiness. In contrast, when economic growth is concentrated among a small portion of a nation’s elite, it does not lead to greater life satisfaction.

Unsurprising really.

 

The nations in the upper left-hand quadrant have low inequality and a positive correlation between happiness and GDP, and include Scandinavian and European nations like Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, Denmark, and France—as well as Japan.

And since we're mostly interested in ourselves, we're there, in the upper left hand quadrant.

Edited by Cyclone

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I certainly wasn't conceding that. Don't get ahead of yourself.

 

http://www.citylab.com/politics/2015/12/income-inequality-makes-people-unhappy/416268/

 

 

Did you look at the data I found?

 

Denmark has high state spending, but Switzerland is very low and Iceland is pretty average.

So there is no correlation between socialism and happiness.

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Not an argument so much as an observation.

 

But don't they have high tax rates to support their strong welfare state? And wasn't a higher rate of tax part of the discussion regarding controlling high paid salaries?

 

 

 

Some do, some don't.

 

Denmark has a high tax rate.

 

Switzerland isn't any higher than ours - in some Cantons of Switzerland the maximum income tax is 22% - I don't think it exceeds 40% anywhere.

 

Tax is lower in New Zealand than here, and is lower in Canada.

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Has anyone noticed that none of the political parties promise to do anything regarding plugging the tax avoidance loophole?

Billions in revenue is lost every year due to fat cats and corporates using our flawed tax system.

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